Repelling the advances of the Islamic State, which the United States’ top counterterrorism official said poses no “credible” domestic threat, now seems a bigger priority than destroying the homeland-threatening Khorasan. The United States hasn’t trumpeted any new bombing against Khorasan, even though it meticulously publicizes the number of Islamic State targets destroyed, down to individual pickup trucks.

Administration officials “made a big deal about what these strikes were about on Sept. 23, and then essentially they assumed a defensive posture just to explain to the press why they did it, and then didn’t really have any interest beyond that,” said Thomas Joscelyn, senior editor of the Long War Journal, which focuses on U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Joscelyn added that leaking about Khorasan in advance undermined the attack against it. “I doubt [the airstrikes] had much of an effect at all because the dumbest thing here was advertising you were going to hit them beforehand,” he said…

The United States has also taken no visible steps to heighten domestic security in light of the purported Khorasan threat. Airport security checks were tightened this past July because of Khorasan’s interest in blowing up airplanes. Physical security was raised at federal buildings this week, but that was out of “an abundance of caution” following a shooting in Canada on Oct. 22 by a man who may have been inspired by the Islamic State. According to a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, there have been no new terrorist threat warnings that have led to heightened security measures in the United States this week.